Criminal Custodians
by freddlerabbit
Summary: One-shot in response to request for Watchmen/CM crossover. Best characterized as "dark fluff." Various members of the BAU have taken to solving crimes off the job - will they discover what their colleagues are up to? Rated M in excess of caution for L/V.
1. Closing Down the Shop

**A/N: a one-shot, bit of dark fluff in response to MoonRaven2's request on the Bonus Prompt #7 Thread: a Watchmen/CM crossover! There's a bit of camp, but I did my best not to change our BAU friends even as I gave them new secret identities. Reviews and reflections encouraged!**

_Reid's journal, May 7, 2008. Sometimes I wonder how long I can keep this all secret from my colleagues. I mean, I don't really wonder this; I know that unless I decide to reveal the truth, I am perfectly capable of concealing my, well, activities from the people I am closest to. Unless I suffer some drastic change in my mental capacities. After all, Gideon never suspected a thing, at least not that he indicated to me. But still I feel substantial psychological pressure to reveal what I am really doing when I go "home" from work. Maybe because we have to trust each other so much, and I sense it undermines that trust to keep the things I really care about from them._

Garcia logged out and locked her system, securing her digital fortress against intruders, benign and . . .not. She pushed the rolling chair back, got up, and stretched her arms over her head, listening for the slight cracking of her joints as she released some of the tension of the day.

The office was dim. Heck, the whole building was dim - it was 11:45pm, and almost everyone had retired for the evening. She'd stayed later than normal; Mr. - Agent - Hotchner, Hotch (yes, she thought of him with a title first, even in the privacy of her own brain) had asked her to complete a "special project" for him, compiling internet activity across a wide range of the BAU's old cases, and she was darned well going to finish it tonight and leave it on his desk so he would have it first thing tomorrow. She wanted deeply to merit his approval and admiration. Of the members of her team, he was the one she often felt she knew least. Not that it affected how much she cared for him.

She had sent him a synopsis on email, of course, using the code names he had requested and keeping details vague (although really, she thought, he should have had more faith in her than that - if _she _wanted to send an email that no one could read, well, she certainly could do it!), but the real meat and bones of the project had been printed out just seconds before. She shuffled the stack into a neat, white rectangle and walked out of her office.

As she passed through the dark bullpen, she heard a custodian vacuuming down the hall. The vacuum sounded old, and as though it might be falling apart. She noticed that Hotchner's light was still on. She swallowed.

Her steps grew somewhat more hesitant, but she kept going. Stopping in front of the door she knocked lightly. "Sir?" There was a long silence.

"Sir? It's Garcia, I have -" a quick glance to be sure no-one was listening "- I have the report you asked for, sir. On those cases."

No response.

Screwing up her face in preparatory apology, Garcia turned the knob and opened the door.

SSA Hotchner's office stood empty, in its usual state of tidiness. No one was there. Garcia swallowed again. It wasn't like Hotchner - or any of them - to leave a light on when they had left for the evening. Something like military efficiency pervaded the BAU, and even Reid turned off all his electronics when he left, almost every time.

Relax, she reassured herself. You can't get frightened of a silly desk lamp! She placed the stack of white papers on Hotchner's desk and started to leave. Then she paused, reconsidered. If his office was unlocked, then anyone could wander in here and find the paperwork. She knew he wanted to keep this one quiet. She bit her lip, the desire to impress her boss warring with the need for discretion.

Garcia walked back over to the desk, and folded the stack in two. She slid the thinner rectangle underneath Hotchner's keyboard, and, spying a roll of tape, tore off two pieces and used them to secure the printouts to the underside. There. She brushed her hands cheerfully, satisfied.

She bent over to turn off the lamp before leaving, and noticed the bottom left drawer was slightly ajar. That was odd. She couldn't resist a quick peek. Disappointingly, it was just a dark, crumpled fabric - probably an old gym shirt, or a dirty suit jacket. It was too bad no one left her any easy clues about their secrets! She smiled: she was Garcia. If anyone, even SSA Hotchner, was hiding something, she knew she could figure it out. If she wanted to.

Garcia was so satisfied with herself as she walked away that she failed to hear small sounds from Hotchner's office as her heels clicked down the corridor to the elevator.

Arriving in the parking lot, Penelope looked around furtively before reaching into her handbag for her keys. She knew they were in there, somewhere. It was just that, in a bag as voluminous as hers, something was always stuck under, or inside of something else, which in turn was beneath a third thing. . . she sighed, set the bag down on the hood, and began lifting objects out.

A pencil case with a cartoon animal on it. Literally, like the kind a third grader might carry. (Pens could come uncapped inside of purses, you know.) A thick paperback. A crumpled brown paper sack: "kin Do" was visible on the side. Cosmetics. Something fluffy. More cosmetics. A large, folded mass of cloth. And then, a jingle.

"Ah-hah!" she crowed, shaking her keys victoriously. After unlocking the car, she hurriedly began to return her belongings to the giant handbag. She put everything in except the cloth. She stared at it for a moment, and sighed.

"Well," she thought out loud, "as it's already been rescued from the depths. . ." she looked around again. The parking lot was deserted, and the only lights stood in the far corner. There wasn't any tall foliage; as far as she could see, she was alone. The building was dark; not even the custodian had turned the lights back on as he went about his rounds. She sighed a little louder, and then giggled. And then, Penelope Garcia hunkered down next to her car and began to change.

It was midnight.

((((()))))


	2. Nobody's Watching

**A/N: sorry the first chapter of this crossover was so short - I needed to post something to galvanize myself. **

_Reid's journal (continued)_: _I knew from analyzing the geographic profile that those murders in Maryland had to have been committed by an UnSub living within an 80 mile radius. I know that the team chose not to concentrate on this case because the other had such compelling factors. This wasn't the wrong decision. But I also couldn't stand idly by and let this man go on terrifying and murdering people - sick people -, not when I knew enough to do something about it. _

After some contortions, Garcia stood back up. In her handbag, neatly folded, lay her wildly printed dress, bright green wedges, and the three fluffly hair ornaments she'd proudly worn into work that morning. Now she was dressed all in dark hues, not a ruffle, feather or flower to be seen. She got into the car, and placed the purse on the passenger seat. As she drove out of the parking lot, the lights reflected off of an unusual contour resting on the top of her bag's contents. Garcia had a gun.

((((()))))

- _Twenty minutes earlier -_

Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner unfolded himself from behind the squat filing cabinet where he'd hidden upon hearing the click of Garcia's heels down the hall. Luckily, she had been walking slowly, and so he'd had sufficient time to conceal himself behind the office furniture. Still, that had been a close one. He frowned as he brushed some wrinkles-in-progress from his clothing. He wasn't the sort of person to cower behind a filing cabinet; he preferred to meet danger or even discomfort head-on. Still, his presence in the office at this hour would have provoked the technical analyst's curiosity, and he felt, on the whole, it was better to avoid it.

He, too, sighed and stretched as he looked around his office prior to departing. In his case, the sigh was motivated by Garcia's having turned off the light before she left, causing him to stub his toe into the side of his desk. Ever collected, he did not curse or yell. He simply frowned.

Hotch restored some light to the office, and looked around. He unstuck Garcia's printouts from the bottom of his keyboard and read through them, frowning. He had known there was a pattern here.

In 7 of the BAU's cases during his tenure, including three that had been solved and the killers put behind bars, an inexplicable piece of evidence had been found at the crime scene. He himself had been frustrated by these occurrences, and he wasn't alone - Reid had noticed the pattern, and could possibly have undertaken his own investigation; the last two were sufficiently close in time that Prentiss had commented on the oddity.

"Didn't we find some green stickers like this in the Pellicano case? Could there be a connection?" He had taken pains to downplay the stickers as a coincidence; they were a common household item and had multiple uses. She had looked at Hotchner somewhat oddly after that.

In fact, he was somewhat divided about his misdirection. On the one hand, he believed he owed his team honesty - for their sakes, and because a command of all the facts was the best way to ensure they were keeping the "bad guys", as Jack would say "from hurting the good guys."

But this guilt could be reasoned away: Hotchner was confident that, of the killers who had been arrested, they had identified and apprehended the actual culprits - these perpetrators had fit the profiles exactly, and had also been convicted based on additional evidence. They hadn't been wrong. And if he shared his suspicions with his team, that these little green stickers indicated some kind of connection between the disparate crimes, these separate and apparently unconnected killers - where would that lead? He couldn't afford to cast doubt on good convictions - and as a former prosecutor, he knew how tenaciously doubt could take hold. Nor did he want to distract the team - if they had caught the killers, what was the point of uncovering further connections? He wasn't sure that even he believed in some kind of fantastic conspiracy.

On the other hand, here he was, chasing one.

He folded up the papers once more, and placed them in his briefcase. He pulled the wadded clothing Garcia had seen out of his bottom drawer, and folded it into a duffel bag. He would wash it when he returned home. Hotchner switched off his light and walked out of the office towards the parking lot.

((((()))))

As Garcia drove through the darkened streets, she ran every red light she could get away with. Being a hacker did not breed an innate respect for the law, and working for the FBI hadn't cultivated one. Plus, she was in a hurry.

In reviewing the cases Mr. Hotchner had asked her to pull up, Penelope had noticed something. There were a number of unsolved cases - even some the BAU hadn't chosen to examine - where a similar item had been found at the crime scene. Not that this detail made it into most case files, of course - local law enforcement was often too tired or unobservant to make much of a sticker here and there, especially when the cases didn't fall into the same juridiction, and so the same officer never saw the green circles more than once. But of course she ran a search not just through text files and transcripts - any sophomore with half a brain could have done that for the Unit Chief. No, Garcia's search also ran through crime scene photographs, oblique references made by police officers to their friends on social-networking sites, and the occasional shot from local news coverage when crime scenes had been cleaned up to merit a rating less than "M". She had found three more cases, in addition to the ones in her report. After all, she reasoned, he hadn't asked her to look at external cases for him, and so he wouldn't expect her to bring them up.

In looking further into the details of those three cases the BAU hadn't seen, Garcia had encountered a new voice on the internet - a novice hacker, one she hadn't run into before, but with impressive skills. He'd noticed her nosing around a Virginia officer's Facebook page, and offered to give her information about "office supplies" - vague enough that she couldn't be sure he hadn't just picked up on her search patters, but relevant enough she couldn't just dismiss him and mark his IP address as a spammer on all the major ISPs, for good measure. When she'd responded, cautiously, he'd sent her a cell-phone snapshot of a crime scene, with green stickers in evidence, that hadn't been part of her search before.

So, she'd agreed to meet him. In an all-night diner, where at least waitstaff would be around. But she knew from experience that these sorts of meetings could go wrong, dangerously wrong. And that's why she'd brought protection. The team didn't know she could shoot a gun - and, in fact, she preferred not to. But she could do it to protect herself - or people she loved. And, she rationalized, she always went for the leg, just to disable the person. She hoped she wouldn't have a chance to use her impressive aim tonight.

((((()))))

_Reid's journal, continued: I know that my appearance is not intimidating. Even people who hear my title dismiss me, discount me. If I was going to act on my own to protect these people, these potential victims, I had to command respect at first sight, because this murderer was unlikely to give time to scare him with my words. Especially if I caught him in the act - or just before. Perhaps this sounds like justification. Perhaps I'm a little embarrassed by the turn this has taken. If that's so, let it be so - embarrassment is a reflection of one's own insecurities, rather than of how one's community or others in general really perceive a person. I know that I am stronger than my own fears. And I am confident I have made the right decision._

Spencer Reid hesitated before entering the bar. From the glimpses he obtained when patrons left or entered, the atmosphere looked unpleasant - dank, humid. He imagined it didn't smell particularly good. But he had to go in. He knew that this was the most likely place for the UnSub to strike, and he intended to be there to stop him - and, if possible, apprehend him and prevent him from killing again.

He supposed it wasn't entirely accurate to refer to this suspected serial killer as an UnSub - after all, there was no current investigation, nor was there likely to be, unless he could somehow bring the pattern to the attention of the BAU. And given the involvement he was about to engage in, he thought any scenario dire enough to bring him to confess his own actions and urge his teammates to help was highly unlikely to occur. And Maryland and Virginia police were so unlikely to cooperate that he didn't consider this a viable option. But the mental habit was hard to break, and he supposed that what he was undertaking was an investigation of sorts. Even if no one would ever know about it. He swallowed, and attempted to run a hand through his hair.

It got stuck. Anyone who knew Reid would have needed several moments to identify him in his current guise. He had, with the assistance of some Hallowe'en themed products, transformed his wavy brown locks into a spiky blond mowhawk. Privately, he was impressed with the height of the hairy triangles he'd created. A false gold earring was clipped to one pinna, and the shredded sleeves of the t-shirt he wore revealed lean but defined muscles, now covered in temporary tattoos. His feet were encased in what appeared to be heavy boots, but were actually _tromps d'oeil _- he knew, from having tested them out upon purchase, that he could run fast and pivot in them as well as he could in sneakers.

It was time.

With another swallow, Reid pushed open the heavy, grimy door, and entered the bar.

((((()))))


	3. Eating and Drinking

Garcia parked her car and looked around before getting out. The diner was across the street, its façade lit by neon stripes. A few patrons were visible through the dim lighting that poured through the windows; most sat alone, slowly eating or drinking, listlessly staring into space or looking at a newspaper. One young, weary looking blonde fussed with a tiny child who was, apparently, refusing to eat anything. The surrounding area was dark – shops closed, some shuttered, residential lights mostly turned off. The black asphalt gleamed slightly, as though wet.

She gathered the handbag, concealing the gun beneath a sweater, and closed the door. Her dark sneakers made no noise as she crossed the quiet street into the diner. A faint smell of cooked onions drifted out as she opened the door.

Her contact had said he "looked young" and would be wearing a green sweatshirt. He wasn't too hard to spot: a greasy looking teenager with holey jeans sat alone in a corner, a half-eaten plate of pancakes in front of him. He caught her eye, and dropped a sullen nod.

"Hi."

"Hey."

A waitress interrupted with a menu for Garcia and a 500 watt smile.

"So," she said firmly, "talk to me."

The kid, Chris, was a bored and lonely nerd who spent much of his free time hacking into law enforcement communications chatter – he had become proficient, but either out of laziness or fear, hadn't tried anything harder than local police comms, which were fairly easy to break.

Chris had found the crimes interesting. He dropped his attempts to hack into other types of places and became slowly involved in the world of law enforcement. He started keeping a journal of interesting crimes and jotting down notes as discoveries and speculation came across the 'net, or searches for prints or records that he felt confident were connected.

He kept a radio tuned to police frequencies, on low, in the background while he worked. And it was just coincidence, really, that some cop in the background had mentioned "stickers again" from a crime scene at the same time Chris saw a database query on stickers cross his screen. That focused his attention.

Police had been finding green stickers at various murder sites more and more frequently over the past three months. They were annoyed by this and talked, as the kid said, "a lot of smack" about it – but Garcia knew that this was most likely to cover up how unsettling it was to find these inexplicable cheery green circles in the midst of gristle and gore and terror. He said one officer on the last case suggested calling the FBI.

As he spoke, Garcia watched the kid. Like many loners, he was curled in on himself, as though worried about how much space in the physical world he was allowed to take up. He rarely made eye contact, although he looked up from his plate and past her ear more and more as he went on and was met with positivity, rather than ridicule. Or anger. The green sweatshirt had slid down one bony wrist to reveal a purple and rose bruise; Garcia's eyes narrowed as she inferred that he didn't live with people who were nice to him.

As he finished, he pushed the dirty hair out of his eyes and looked at her, waiting. She swallowed down a lump at her throat at the gesture, which reminded her of Reid.

"You did great work, Chris. A lot of trained professionals might have missed the connections, but you didn't. And you've been keeping careful records as the case developed, which could really help catch this guy." She paused.

"Of course, we both know that since you didn't come by this information. . . well, honestly, we probably can't use it in court. But I work to catch guys like this and get them off the streets – and I don't mind the truth, even if I can't show it to a judge. So I'd like to make you a deal."

He put down his fork. "I'm listening."

He was surprisingly easy to convince; Garcia guessed that he must need approval more than even he realized, because he hardly bargained with her at all. Chris would keep her posted on any green sticker murders, and he would send her a copy of his journal. They set up an encryption key to ensure any communications between the two of them would remain private. She paid for his dinner, before she left, and resisted the temptation to ruffle his hair. He was a good kid. And he'd be helpful.

Walking back to her car, she noticed the two lights in the apartment building that had been on when she arrived were now dark. The tired mom and child had gone home. The streets were silent.

The mechanical sounds of her car door opening, and the jingle of her keys, masked the click of a trigger guard being released.

((((()))))

Reid breathed in – initially, he meant to breathe in deeply and exhale, to calm himself, but his breath was brought up short by the humidity and scent of sweat in the bar. Instead, he coughed, and squared his shoulders, hoping the motion would mask his discomfort.

He signaled the bartender for a beer without speaking. He knew that his voice, soft and somewhat high-pitched, wouldn't do him any favors in here, and so he intended to use it as little as possible. He raised the grimy bottle to his lips, and pretended to take a swallow as he scanned the bar.

The place was crowded, packed tightly with men in torn clothing and a hard edge to their glances. The men huddled in groups, laughing, talking, arguing, slapping one another. Some were dressed in workman's clothes, heavy boots, denim, ornamented with grime. Some wore shirts and trousers tailored to fit skinny bodies in soft fabrics. There was someone for everyone here, was the general idea. Reid just hoped he could find the one he was looking for without too much. . . awkwardness.

He hung near the side wall, willing himself unremarkable as the evening ticked away. He watched the men circulate – approaching one another, or exchanging glances, or shying away. He had a slightly awkward exchange with a man in a purple shirt who attempted to strike up a conversation about Reid's tattoos. Disgusted that he was getting nowhere after ten minutes, the man sashayed off and rejoined his group, talking animatedly and shooting angry glances Reid's way. He switched walls.

And then, he saw him. Or at least, he thought he might have seen him. Standing alone in the bar, a few inches shorter than average height, thickly muscled. The man wore a blue short-sleeved shirt, khaki pants, and brown shoes. He moved like a predator, scanning his visual field before taking a step. He appeared to have spent much of the night surveying the room, much like Reid had – although Reid couldn't recall their glances having intersected. He looked away, aware that sometimes people seemed to respond to being observed.

He saw the man put down a half-full glass on a nearby tall table, and take purposeful steps towards the back of the bar. Reid quickly glanced around for a location to dispose of his own untouched drink; when he looked back up, the man was gone. He looked quickly, frustration and a slight tinge of fear rising in his chest. Nothing.

Reid walked towards the restrooms, hoping desperately to catch his target there. He saw nothing. No feet underneath stall doors, no sense of too-quiet that indicated the man was hiding with his feet on a toilet, waiting. The bathroom had no windows, and no other exit. Reid sighed.

As he pushed his way past two men entering the room at full speed, he turned left, instead of right, down the hallway. It dead-ended eight feet from the bathroom door, but set back in a smaller alcove was a tiny door that looked like it might hold janitorial supplies. Reid pushed. The door was stuck. He pushed harder – it creaked, but did not give.

He looked around. No one was coming. Feeling a combination of foolish and as though he were imitating Morgan, Reid kicked at the middle bottom of the door, which cracked and splintered at the lock. It swung open onto an alleyway. He was sure that this is where the man had disappeared to. He looked around the alleyway, failing to discern any trace evidence.

Reid felt – well, silly. He had donned this disguise in order to blend in, to see if he could spot the man he suspected of being a violent predator without being spotted himself. But now that the target had escaped – so quickly, and so easily, Reid was left feeling exposed, as though his true identity and demeanor would be identifiable now that his mission had temporarily failed.

Glumly, he walked back into the bar. He made his way to the door, pushed it open, and hesitated a moment. A beefy man standing outside caught his eye. He swallowed.

His phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Reid." It was Hotch. "I need your help with something. Are you busy right now?"

"Uh, no, I'm not."

"Good. Can you meet me at – let's see – Bob and Edith's Diner in Arlington, in 30 minutes?"

Reid thought frantically. It would take him twelve and a half minutes to get home, and at least eight to wash the sprays out of his hair and change his clothes.

"Could we make it forty-five?"

"See you there." A click.

Reid ran the rest of the way back to his car.


	4. Petty Crimes

**A/N: a one-shot, bit of dark fluff in response to MoonRaven2's request on the Bonus Prompt #7 Thread: a Watchmen/CM crossover. I haven't really imported characters from Watchmen - I've tried to stay true to the CM characters; just have them living in more of a Watchmen universe.**

Special Agent - in fact, former _Supervisory_ Special Agent Derek Morgan grunted as he felt a cloth strap dig into his hip. If anyone had been close enough to hear what he was muttering under his breath, it would have sounded something like "_other _agents are sleeping soundly in their beds, but _I_. . ." But no one was close enough to hear: Morgan was suspended halfway between the ground and the Manassas Museum through a complicated system of ropes, pitons, and harnesses. And at the moment, he was trying to unstick his foot from where it had gotten wedged beneath a brick.

If anyone had been close enough to hear Morgan, it would be better for all concerned that it weren't one of his teammates at the BAU. Any of those people would currently be caught in varying states between disbelief and hysterics.

In addition to being wrapped up in some rather questionable rapelling gear, Morgan was wearing the kind of outfit even Garcia might have been hard-pressed to create via Photoshop. His muscular body was clad in an extremely form-fitting green fabric that stretched around his muscles as he pulled and yanked at his foot. One long orange lightning bolt ran up the right hand side. His hands were hidden beneath a set of slightly padded black gloves, the kinds students of martial arts tended to wear, and his face was covered in what appeared to be black latex. His physique was intimidating, to be sure, but the overall effect was scary more because you weren't sure that someone wearing this getup would be entirely sane.

Finally succeeding in freeing his foot, Morgan shook it momentarily, out over the one point five story drop. He placed his foot back on the brick wall and continued his climb.

Deep in the recesses of the museum, as he had known it would, a light flickered on. Morgan heard a tiny thud through and open window. He began to hurry.

X-X-X-X-X

A very damp-looking Spencer Reid opened the door of Bob and Edith's Diner. It might be more correct to say, he flung the door open, causing it to collide with the door stopper and bounce back into his chest as he attempted to enter the restaurant. "Oof!" he said.

He looked around quickly for his unit chief. He spied Hotchner sitting in a back corner frowning at a cup of coffee. (Curiously, he was sitting in the same position as Garcia's contact had been, miles away and half an hour earlier.) He had to turn nimbly to one side to avoid an elderly waitress bearing plates piled high with pancakes. Too quickly for anyone to notice, Reid lifted a mug of coffee off of her serving tray, took a swig, and replaced it. He proceeded to Hotchner's booth with a more calm demeanor.

"Hotch.?" It came out halfway between a question and a statement.

Dark eyes looked up from under lowered brows. "Reid. Sit down." Despite the informality of the setting, and Reid's dripping dishevelment, it was clearly a command. Reid sat.

Hotchner fixed him with an intense glare. "Here." He slid a steaming mug at Reid, who reached out a gangly hand to take it. "Uh, thanks," he said, looking frantically around for sugar packets.

"I appreciate that it is highly unusual for me to ask you to meet me outside of the office," Hotchner began.

"Oh, no, that's fine," Reid hastened to assure his boss. "I wasn't, um, sleeping anyway."

Hotchner raised an eyebrow. "Indeed." He sighed.

"Look, Reid, what I'm about to discuss with you - to ask you. It's a bit, well, unorthodox."

Reid gulped and then winced as he set down his coffee mug with an audible _thunk_, slopping the hot liquid onto his hand. He couldn't imagine where this was going. And Reid had a very strong imagination. At least when it came to hypothesizing future courses of action.

"The truth is, I've discovered something. . . disturbing. It may well be outside the Bureau's jurisdiction to address. But I've sat with this long enough, and I - well, I feel compelled to see if there isn't something I can do to make it right."

Reid stared. He didn't know anyone more conscientious about drawing boundaries and following rules than Aaron Hotchner. His imagination continued to fail him.

As Hotchner launched into his explanation about the murders connected by the green stickers, he was too focused to notice Reid's shoulders relax and the young agent exhale slightly in relief. His secret was safe for now.

He brought his attention sharply back into focus just as Hotchner was saying, "and so, I was wondering what you thought."

The younger man considered. He confirmed, mentally, that it wasn't April Fools' Day, or any other day which he knew to involve pranks and practical jokes. His most recent performance evaluation had been stellar. He could think of no reason Hotchner would attempt to entrap him into admitting he would be willing to engage in outside activities in contravention of both the letter and the spirit of FBI internal regulations.

"It's curious that these marks would be left at the scene, especially if you are confident that there are different killers between the various cases," he began. He wanted to be cautious initially, despite his deduction that this was likely not a set-up. "I am not sure that I have any theories, either, about what this could mean. It is improbable that it is just a coincidence, however." Hotchner nodded his agreement.

Reid continued. "I would be happy to look into it with you, but - well, aren't we in danger of running afoul of internal regulations and compromising the legal process if there is something sinister here, and the UnSub gets caught?" He had refrained from citing specifically those rules they would be violating, as he found this was likely to make people nervous.

Hotchner sighed and steepled his fingers. "Yes, Reid. But this has just become too important to me. I feel like we're being taunted, like this is directed at us." He leveled his eyes at Reid. "I promise you, if you will help me out on this one, I will take the fall if trouble comes of it."

Reid nodded. "OK." There was a long pause. "So, where do you think we should start?"

Hotchner reached down beneath the diner table and extracted a large file box. He pushed it at Reid. "I'd like you to get familiar with these files first. I know it won't take you that long. Once you have, and you've had the chance to discuss with me any questions or thoughts you might have, I'd like to start by exploring the local cases - re-interviewing families and close associates of the victims and maybe even talking to any witnesses or peripheral people. We want to keep a low profile, so I think for now we should avoid talking to law enforcement and judicial personnel."

Reid's face visibly brightened. "You mean, we'll have to be in disguise?"

X-X-X-X-X

"Turn around, Penelope." Garcia turned around slowly, desperately trying to steady her hand so the jingle of her keys wouldn't give away the panic she felt. It was definitely worse that this person knew her name. Not that a random, late-night mugging wasn't bad enough. Keeping her hands up, although she hadn't been instructed to do so, Garcia turned to face the person with the gun.

"Good. Give me the bag." She gulped. That was one of her favorite shirts in there, although she breathed an inner sigh of gratitude that the heels were safely tucked away inside the car. She handed over the handbag.

Her assailant took it from her, his gun never wavering. He was wearing dark clothes, jeans, hooded sweatshirt, and dark shoes. He had gloves. She couldn't see his face, which was tilted downwards, but glimpses of neck indicated he was white. He dumped the bag out at his feet and kicked at the contents with a sneakered foot. She heard a glittery pen snap under his weight.

"Kneel down." At this point, Garcia's internal monologue focused on one repeating phrase: _ohgodnonononono_. She knelt, trembling. The heavy cape she wore swirled around her.

The gun-toting Bad Guy also knelt, and kept his gun trained on Garcia's head as he did so. Keeping one eye on her, he began to sift through her handbag's contents. He pulled out two USB thumb drives and a bright blue notebook with a peacock feather on the front. He kicked her things around a little more before standing up again. Uncomfortable with the height difference, Garcia also stood.

"Is that it?"

"What? What?" She could hear the quaver in her own voice, and cursed herself inwardly. If any of the others were here, there would have handled this much better. But the thought of a gun pointed at any of her team made her spirits sink even lower.

"Research. Is that all of it?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I don't have anything else with me." She prayed against hope that he wouldn't look inside the secret compartment she'd had custom-made underneath the change holder. The one that docked her laptop.

"You are going to turn around. Then I am going to count to ten. Then you are going to count to twenty. Then you can turn back around."

"O. . . okay."

"And, Penelope?"

"Yes?"

"I will know if you stick your nose into old case files anymore, where it doesn't belong. You have a nice nose. It would be a shame to see it get separated from you."

Garcia swallowed.

"One. Two. Three." The perpetrator counted. Then she began. She heard soft noises when she began, but she didn't turn around until she hit seven, wanting to give him time to run away. Taking a deep breath, she extracted the gun from her cleavage, where she'd slipped it before leaving the restaurant. She saw a dark figure hastening away. She aimed and fired.

She heard loud cursing as he hit the ground: as always, her shot had found its mark. She calmly and slowly picked up her things and repacked her handbag, placing the broken pen carefully in an inner pocket so that she could tape it up tomorrow. Then she walked over to the writhing, moaning body.

"Shut up," she explained. "You're not going to die. Not from that. Now, we're going to get that . . . taken care of. And then you are going to explain to me who you are, and who sent you, and then I am going to explain to you exactly what you will and will not be taking back to them."

She duct-taped the man's hands behind his back, and put his gun into her bag, clipping the trigger guard back on it first. "Stay here," she said unecessarily. She pulled the car up right next to him, realizing he couldn't hobble over to it. Plus, she felt a dark flash of satisfaction from the fear she knew he would feel when she parked a hair away from his body. Penelope Garcia was full of love - but she could be vicious as a rabid tiger when faced with Bad Guys like these. She hustled him into the back of her car.

As she pulled away from the curb, she pressed a hidden button near the change holder. "Confirm reports of any suspicious activity in the 5 mile radius from current location and delete if obtained" she instructed. The laptop made no noise in response, but she knew it would follow her instructions. After all, she'd designed it.

X-X-X-X-X

Morgan swore once, twice under his breath as he jimmied a window open. He had finally reached the top floor of the building. It was an old building, and although it had been overlaid with modern security systems, the panes of the windows were still rather loose. He opened the window about a foot and stopped, peering through at the darkness inside. The light he'd seen in the building earlier had shone through the adjoining window; this one remained dark. He heard some tentative scuffling in the room next door, but this room remained silent. Drawing a breath, Morgan squeezed himself through the open panes and hopped through to the floor. He landed on the balls of his feet, barely making a thud. Internally, he thanked the plyometrics class at his local gym for that.

Silent and swift, the green-clad BAU agent crossed the floor and stood behind the open door to the hallway. As he darted, he swerved his hips once, twice to avoid standing display cases. He peered out into the hallway and listened.

By the sound of it, there were two of them - large people, but not clumsy. They didn't make any noises of dropping or shuffling, and neither of them were swearing. Still, their footfalls were heavy and, based on what he knew about the contents of that room, they needed muscle to make off with their prize.

The museum housed a significant collection of America's earliest railroad memorabilia, and recently, New York had loaned the museum some of the original "gravity railroad" pieces from the construction of something called Montresor's Tramway in the mid eighteenth century. They had been valued at over $150,000 each. Morgan didn't know anything about railroads, but he did know a lot about property crimes in his area, and he knew that there were several local varieties of goon who would be unable to resist going after the Tramway. And he wasn't willing to let that happen.

Morgan prized his job at the BAU - he felt that saving lives and helping families were the two most important things one could do in a career like his. He valued his colleages and the intensity of the cases that they worked on. But there were times when he suffered nostalgic pangs for his Chicago law-enforcement days, moments when he read in the paper about struggles that people and civic instutions faced after being robbed or assaulted with less than deadly consequences. He knew that he was in the habit of reassuring the team that "you can't save them all." But there were times when, although he knew this, he wanted at least to save more. And so, half a year after he became Special Agent Morgan, he had snuck out on occasion to keep his streets a little safer. He always left the perps temporarily unconscious or bound, to ensure that Virginia P.D. could pick them up.

It began as a way to catch criminals in the act - protecting young women going home late at night in risky neighborhoods; watching out for healthcare workers at local clinics. Defending a priest from a parent who'd lost a child. But as time went on, he became familiar with some of the criminals - in certain cases, he could almost predict where and when they would strike. And every so often, he attempted to pre-empt them, rather than being on patrol for the next bad thing.

He'd developed a kind of reputation in the criminal underworld, at least in the Virginia criminal underworld. Initially, the clothes had just been purchased at an athletic shop, the coloring only what they had in his size. He'd worn a ski mask to conceal his features, and left his Bureau credentials and gun at home. But as time went on, he found himself looking forward to donning the green bodysuit. He felt - well, he felt just a a little bit like a superhero, like the Spiderman comics he'd read as a kid. Green was his favorite color. And the latex on his face wouldn't come off until he washed it, at home. There had been one or two close calls, in terms of BAU emergencies, but so far, he remained undiscovered.

Drawing a deep breath he ran into the hallway, executed a swift turn on his heel, and launched himself into the adjoining room, flicking the lights off as he entered.

"DROP IT," he yelled. There was a crash. Damn, he hadn't thought through the implications of using the common phrase. By the time he had subdued the one robber, his arm wrapped around a surprisingly slender neck, he looked up to see the room apparently empty.

"I guess an honest day's work just isn't good enough for some people, huh," he complained, as he pulled a length of cord from around his waist and deftly secured the robber's hands and ankles. He swiveled the guy around to see who it was - and almost pushed her backwards on discovering he was a she. Morgan hadn't expected a woman. She smirked at him, registering his surprise.

"You must be the green monster we've heard about," she said.

"That depends on what you've heard," he couldn't resist saying, scanning the room for the other perp. She was cute, after all. He saw a flicker of motion, and heard a tiny noise. There.

She fell silent on seeing the other caught and bound until Morgan forced her to make the 911 call. He looked around the room once more, preparing to depart the way he came. He noticed that one display case was ajar, and he lifted the lid to prevent it from shattering. Setting it down just out of arm's reach of the bound women, he said, "I hope I don't see you two ladies again." He tossed off a mock salute as he ran over and started buckling himself into his harness.

X-X-X-X-X

_Reid's journal, May 8, 2008. Hotch just asked me to assist him in figuring out the connections between a series of murders committed by different killers in different states: at each crime scene, some small green stickers were found, of a commonly available type. He isn't sure what it could mean. I am curious to see whether we could have missed some connection between the killers - it seems more the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theorists, but it is also, potentially, the simplest and therefore the most likely solution. Or someone is playing some kind of joke. In either case, I'm pleased to have something else to work on, but I am concerned that this will present certain. . . complications with the other independent investigation I have been pursuing. At least Hotch has promised to take all the blame if we get caught on this one. But really, I'm more worried about him catching me. _


End file.
